ecapitulated the actual conditions
he saw he had only been dreaming of going back there. He had drawn all
the money he could and he owed Archy Bates a ten-pound note. Stowed away
under his clothes in his cabin he had nearly an oke, which is about
three pounds, of a dark brown substance which Mr. Dainopoulos had
mentioned was worth eighty pounds in Egypt if it were adroitly
transferred to the gentleman who had expressed his willingness to do
business with the friends of Mr. Bates. Here lay the beginnings of that
desire, it seemed. That eighty pounds might put Mr. Spokesly in a
position to go where he liked. It might; but the chances were that Mr.
Spokesly would fail to get away from himself after all. It is not so
easy to be an outlaw as it appears, when one has been one of the
respectable middle classes for so long. The seaman is as carefully
indexed as a convict, and has very little more chance in ordinary times
of getting away. Mr. Spokesly knew that and had no such notion in his
head. What he did meditate was some indirect retirement from the scene,
when a pocketful of loose cash would enable him to effect a desirable
man[oe]uvre in a dignified manner, and he would have no need to forfeit
his own opinion of himself. The temperament of the crook may sometimes
be innate, but in most cases it is the result of a long apprenticeship.
Mr. Spokesly wanted money, he wanted a command, he even wanted romance;
but he did not want to be wicked. He could no more get away from
Haverstock Hill, North West London, than could Mrs. Dainopoulos with all
her romantical equipment. Therein lay the essential difference between
himself and Mr. Dainopoulos, who also desired respectability, but who
had in reserve a native facility for swift and secret chicanery. Mr.
Dainopoulos slipped in and out of the law as easily as a lizard through
the slats of a railing. Mr. Spokesly could not do that, he discovered to
his own surprise and perhaps regret. Unknown to himself, the austere
integrity of distant ancestors and the hard traditions of an ancient
calling combined to limit his sphere of action. The reason why many of
us remain merely useful and poverty-stricken nonentities is that we can
serve no other purpose in the world. We lack the flare for spectacular
exploits; and even the war, which was to cleanse and revitalize the
world, has left us very much as we were, the victims of integrity.

When he had seen the anchor made fast and the compressors